A Belated Welcome

to another follower, Gary Corby, author of an eagerly awaited series of detective stories set in Periclean Athens, with Socrates's big brother Nicolaos as the detective. Gary's blog is called A Dead Man Fell From the Sky

John William Waterhouse

Caroline Lawrence of the Roman Mysteries blog and associated novels draws our attention to the Royal Academy's J. W. Waterhouse exhibition, running until 13th September (so no chance of my seeing it, alas). In honour of the occasion she is blogging a series of posts on Waterhouse's work.



Others who won't be in London over the summer can see his paintings on two online galleries devoted to his works, here and here. The Victorian Web also has a section on Waterhouse (although they don't look like it, the list is actually a list of links to the paintings and discussions of his work). (public domain image of John William Waterhouse's Ophelia is from museumsyndicate)

Isis and Osiris

The story of the Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris, their brother Set, their child Horus, and the sun god Ra is well known from a mixture of native Egyptian texts and from texts written by the 2nd century AD Greek biographer and philosopher Plutarch, and the slightly later Roman novelist Apuleius.

The Egyptian texts have been conveniently collected by reshafim. Scroll down on this page from the reshafim site for texts on mythology.



Plutarch's essay on Isis and Osiris omits many of the more salacious details to be found in the Egyptian texts but starts off with a more straightforward narration of the story before plunging into Plutarch's interpretations of the story as an allegory. Apuleius finished off his novel The Golden Ass with an account of how the main character Lucius was restored to human form by the goddess Isis and was initiated into the mysteries of Isis and of Osiris. An Elizabethan translation can be found here and a more modern, but less legible, one here.

And to finish off with, here is "Isis and Osiris" from Mozart's "The Magic Flute":

The Punic Wars

For some reason the Punic Wars seem to have been popping up rather a lot just recently. They naturally form the background to some of the action in Steven Saylor's Roma, which I am currently reading, though most of the military action in the wars takes place off stage. (public domain image of Hannibal as a child swearing eternal hatred of Rome, from the Comic History of Rome, via wiki commons)

I recently got round to listening to Dan Carlin's series of three podcasts on the Punic Wars (scroll down to find them). His forte is trying to evoke a sense of what it was like living through these events, rather than exactly what happened when.

I've also been listening to what is shaping up to be an
excellent series of lectures on Hannibal from Patrick Hunt of Stanford University. The first lecture on the Carthaginian background to Hannibal's career was wide-ranging and informative with some interesting ideas. The second lecture, which was on the 1st Punic War, was equally informative, though there were times I wished I had some maps in front of me.

Brendan McGinley and Mario Vargas are respectively writing and illustrating an online comic book version of the story of Hannibal. It's still a work in progress, and so far Hannibal has only just reached the Alps and is dealing with the tribes before he crosses the mountains. The generally humorous style reminds me a bit of Asterix. I do wish, however, that they could fit a whole page onto the screen. Even in full screen view one still has to scroll up and down to see the top or bottom inch or so, which is fine for one page but can get a bit tedious.

This week's topic in Melvyn Bragg's series "In Our Time" from BBC Radio 4 is The Destruction of Carthage and it will be available in downloadable format until 19th February, after which it will still be available in the programme's archives, but you will have to listen over an internet connection. One of the contributors to this programme was Mary Beard, who has blogged about the experience.

My Follower

It seems I have acquired a follower. It rather makes me feel like I'm a Victorian maidservant liable to incur the wrath of her mistress at any moment, but never mind. My follower goes by the name of William Hone Jr. and is kind enough to describe Matters Arising as a wonder room. The description for his blog, symbolpond, reads "A journal in the spirit of William Hone about symbols, folklore, rituals, aesthetics, culture theory,and contemporary crap values and miseducation".

For those who, like me, have never heard of William Hone, he was an early 19th century pamphleteer and journalist whose satires against the government led to him being unsuccessfully prosecuted for blasphemous libel three times in 1817. The fact that the prosecutions were unsuccessful marked an important stage in the struggle for freedom of the press.

A biography of Hone, with a link to some of Hone's works.

The William Hone BioText has more on Hone and his works.

Pilgrimages

Pilgrimages were an important expression of religious feeling in Cadfael's day. Shrewsbury Abbey wanted the body of St. Winifred in order to attract more pilgrims. For general information on medieval pilgrimages, see Pilgrims and Pilgrimages -- the other pages on this site are also well worth exploring. (image of scallop shell from wikicommons licensed under GNU Free Documentation Licence)

Although we tend to think first of long distance pilgrimages to the Holy Land, Compostela, or Canterbury, local pilgrimages were also important, and this pdf article from Peregrinations explores the theme. The photobank of images at Peregrinations, the website for the International Society for the Study of Pilgrimage Art, is also well worth exploring. Here is a mosaic from Aachen cathedral to whet your appetite (photo by Asa Mittman via Peregrinations used by permission) .

Davies and Pym

In marking the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize, the Oxford National Dictionary of Biography has put online its articles on winners and some shortlisted authors, among whom are two of my favourite authors: Robertson Davies and Barbara Pym. I must admit the article on Barbara Pym reads more like a newspaper obituary, but the Robertson Davies article is interesting.

Philolog

While looking for material on the story of Europa, I came across this fascinating blog, which unfortunately seems to have been dormant since last November. Nevertheless, the archived posts are well worth reading.

Hardcore History is Back

After a brief absence Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is back, with the first in a two-part podcast on the Punic Wars. He focusses more on a broad overview and what it was like to experience than on the names and dates and does a pretty good job of evoking things which we, hopefully, will never have to live through.

Things Change

I was looking for material on Coronis, when I found MadInkBeard's strip cartoon serial inspired by the Metamorphoses. I haven't had a chance to look through all of it, but it's looking good so far.

APOD

The APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) picture for 18 July shows Jupiter over the ruins of Ephesus. The pictures on this site are always wonderful, though sometimes the explanations are not so clear for the lay person.

Other highly recommended pictures from the past month are those for:

• 13 July (the night sky over Death Valley)

• 5 July (fireworks, lightning, and a comet, all seen together from a beach in Perth, Western Australia)

• 20 June (moonrise over Cape Sounion -- my personal favourite, I made it my wallpaper).